Social Worker’s Attitudes towards Immigrants and Refugees

Map of Ellis Island

Cluster faculty member Andrew Rundle and colleagues, Yoosun Park (Smith College School for Social Work) and Bhuyan (Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto), were recently funded by Smith College to launch a nationwide survey of social worker’s attitudes towards immigrants and refugees.  In a prior project they developed a scale to measure social work practitioner’s attitudes towards immigrants and a scale to measure social work practitioner’s knowledge of immigration and immigration policy.  Then in 2008 as the U.S. entered the Great Recession, they surveyed U.S. social workers regarding attitudes and knowledge around immigration.  Now that the economy has recovered for many sectors but there is a new U.S. administration hostile to immigrants and refugees they are re-fielding the survey of social worker’s attitudes.  They are also surveying Canadian social workers who practice in a contrasting social/political environment that is more welcoming to immigrants and refugees.

Papers from their first project on social worker’s attitudes and knowledge regarding immigration are here:

Bhuyan, R., et al., Linking practitioners’ attitudes towards and basic knowledge of immigrants and their social work education. Social Work Education, 2012, Vol 31, 973-994.

Park, Y., et al., U.S. Social Work Practitioners’ Attitudes Towards Immigrants and Immigration: Results From an Online Survey.  Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies. 2011, Vol 9, 367-392.

Park, Y. & Bhuyan, R. Whom should we serve? A discourse analysis of social workers’ commentary on undocumented immigrants. Journal of Progressive Human Services. 2012, Vol 23 (1),18-40.